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"I will be sitting in the same office by 2027," Starmer stated, adding that if the discussion was successful, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never any break for leaders. In the hour before our chat started, Sir Keir had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they think his political fate are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that many of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and oust him this year.

But Sir Keir was rejecting the idea in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to replace leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I intend to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no situation under which he would step down, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to get better. He tried to convince me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their initial rocky year began to show results.

• He committed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core argument is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with increased political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, should he consider a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as desired.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an controversy when past remarks he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting obvious political perils as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but the public "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will probably trigger howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to